FC: Voteauction.com now online again: The Whack-A-Mole Defense

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

["Gordon Arbuckle" <garbuck () hotmail com> also submitted this late Fri 
night. Background: http://www.cluebot.com/search.pl?query=voteauction.com 
--Declan]

*********

> From: pr () vote-auction com
> To: <pr () vote-auction com>
> Subject: Vote-auction.com back online
> Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:54:51 +0200
>
>
>  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
>  --------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Vote-auction.com back online
>
>  --------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Berlin, October 22, 2000
>
>  Below you find the latest press release by Vote-auction.com
>  [formerly voteauction.com]. We have included the most relevant
>  information on the latest developments of the site and the
>  people and users behind it.
>
>  You can also find this press release at
>  http://www.vote-auction.com/pr.htm
>
>  For any further information feel free to contact
>  pr () vote-auction com or in urgent cases call +49-175-2066954.
>
>  -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>  [V] Voteauction.com is dead, long live Vote-auction.com
>
>  The "Leader of the Election Industry", vote-auction.com
>  has regained access to the web via its new domain
>
>  http://www.vote-auction.com
>
>  During the past week, diverse rumours and hear-say has
>  been passed concerning the website which explores the
>  high-risk consumer markets of the American election
>  industry.
>
>  The site's original domain had been ordered shut down
>  by a local American court in the U.S. state of Illinois
>  earlier this week. But whilst American authorities took
>  their time and tax payers' money to legally pursue almost
>  everybody related to the existence of the website, the
>  owners of the site worked on a re-design and strategy
>  paper for version 2.0 of the project.
>
>
>  [V] Sue 'em 'til they drop...
>
>  The legal authorities of Chicago, Illinois, made every
>  effort to get the site out of service during the last
>  2 weeks. Amongst the original creator of the project,
>  James Baumgartner, and the owner of the domain, Hans
>  Bernhard, they also found it in the public's interest
>  to sue:
>
>  . domainbank.com: Domainbank inc., is the registry where
>    the original domain "voteauction.com" is registered.
>    It is defendant in named Chicago legal case.
>
>  . silverserver.at: Both SILVER SERVER's president as
>    well as of one of the top technical staff are also named
>    defendants in the Chicago legal case. SILVER SERVER is
>    vote-auction.com's internet access provider.
>
>
>  [V] (Il)legal Battle?
>
>  It remains open for discussion how it should be possible
>  that a dns (domain name service) or an access provider
>  could ever be responsible for contents accessible via
>  domains they are providing routing services for.
>  Vote-auction.com sees this as illegal practice in total
>  violation of standards set by ICANN.
>
>  We can only interpret domainbank's and SILVER SERVER's
>  name on the list of defendants as a indirect means of
>  repression to force vote-auction.com to go offline.
>
>  Concerning domainbank inc., this strategy seemed to
>  work out for Chicago prosecutors: Because of domain-
>  bank being involved in the legal case, the provider
>  "politely asked" vote-auction.com to provide them
>  with a USD 100,000.00 bond for potential legal costs.
>  Vote-auction.com decided not to comply. Instead, we
>  asked them to transfer our "voteauction.com" domain
>  to another provider. This order was not fulfilled by
>  domainbank, as they had at that time already made
>  a "deal" with Chicago authorites "not to move the
>  domain anywhere", as we were told by one of domain-
>  bank's executives.
>
>  Concerning "defendant" SILVER SERVER, we can provide
>  you with a clear statement from their president:
>
>  "SILVER SERVER clearly and fully supports vote-auction.com.
>   SILVER SERVER president, o.o., is proud to be the billing
>   contact for vote-auction.com. actually we received very
>   interesting offers by investors to launch vote-auction.com
>   in russia and japan."
>
>
>  [V] Users give full support - despite potential respression
>
>  Lots of users of Vote-auction.com have described their
>  support in various emails. This is another reason why
>  we decided not to wait to get back online until local U.S.
>  legal authorities understand that Vote-auction.com
>  works for and NOT against democracy. We will keep on
>  protecting any data which has been submitted to us by
>  trusting users.
>
>  Chicago courts have a somewhat different approach to
>  user rights. The court has ordered all data of users
>  registered with the site to be disclosed to the
>  authorities. This would then enable prosecutors in
>  Chicago to sue users of vote-auction.com individually
>  for so-called "voter fraud".
>
>
>  [V] Where to go from here
>
>  Vote-auction.com is ready to deliver even more services
>  to the vital elections markets. We will keep on
>  focusing on the American elections until mid-November
>  this year. In the meantime we will also finish our
>  redesign and software upgrade in order to get ready
>  for upcoming elections worldwide.
>
>
>  For the Vote-auction.com team:
>
>  lizvlx
>  [V]ote-auction.com
>
>
>  PLEASE NOTE: If you want to access Vote-auction.com via
>   web or mail, please be sure to use the correct domain:
>
>   pr () vote-auction com
>   http://www.vote-auction.com
>
>  We will not be able to receive messages sent to the
>  old address. Thank you.
>
>
>  [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
>  []                                                  []
>  [] [V]ote-auction.com                               []
>  []                                                  []
>  [] pr () vote-auction com                              []
>  []                                                  []
>  [] The Election Idustry Leader - Bringing           []
>  [] Capitalism & Democracy closer together           []
>  []                                                  []
>  [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

**********

> Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 07:54:58 -0400
> To: declan () well com
> From: Thom Wysong <tgw () technodemocracy org>
> Subject: VoteAuction.com & The Whack-A-Mole Defense
>
> Declan,
>
> You were right about VoteAuction.com popping up again -- same IP address, 
> different domain name. More information on it is attached below.
>
> -Thom
>
> ---------
>
> There are quite a few links in this article that don't show up in an email 
> version of it. They are, however, usable in the online version of the 
> article at ... 
> http://technodemocracy.org/people/tgw/docs/voteauction-whackamole.html
>
> ---------
>
> VoteAuction.com & The Whack-A-Mole Defense
>
> By Thom Wysong
> 7:00 AM EST, 22 October 2000
>
> Only a day ago some were declaring that VoteAuction.com was dead. It's not 
> so. It never was.
>
> Earlier this year the web site stirred up controversy when the site, and 
> the New York based graduate student who created it, first came to the 
> public's attention. When New York authorities threatened legal action, the 
> web site was temporarily shut down. Ownership of the site was transferred 
> to an Austrian entrepreneur who promptly re-opened the web site running on 
> a server in Bulgaria - out of the reach of American authorities. Or, so it 
> seemed.
>
> The weak link in their plan was that Domain Bank, the company that 
> controlled their DNS entry, was based in the State of Pennsylvania. Last 
> week, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners took advantage of this 
> weak link and obtained a court order forcing the US based company to 
> remove VoteAuction.com from their Domain Name System (DNS). This action 
> rendered the site unreachable by most people. But it did not shut the web 
> site down,
> as was erroneously reported.
>
> For those not familiar with DNS, this is analogous to someone's name being 
> removed from the telephone directory - their telephone is still hooked up, 
> but people can no longer look that person's name up in the directory. To 
> call that person you need to find the phone number from some other source, 
> or simply remember what it was. But, you *can* still call the person.
>
> With the VoteAuction.com site, the same was true. In other words, even 
> after the DNS entry had been deleted, the original VoteAuction.com website 
> was still accessible from the Internet by those who knew how to find the 
> website's "phone number" (its IP address) using such tools as a WHOIS 
> search and a DNS lookup.
>
> However, to see what's posted on the website it's no longer necessary to 
> track down its IP address. A few days ago, on 18 October 2000, the people 
> behind VoteAuction.com registered a new domain name - apparently as a
> backup for the one they realized might get removed from DNS. The new 
> domain name is simply Vote-Auction.com. All they did was add a hyphen.
>
> The article continues at ... 
> http://technodemocracy.org/people/tgw/docs/voteauction-whackamole.html




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